Memories come before money

A couple of very interesting e-mails regarding pay-per-view:

"When I was growing up, my dad didn't let us kids watch much TV. ... But as we got older the one thing we could count on watching was Rainbow sports. I remember hoping for a sellout so the BYU game would be a live broadcast and not blacked out. Watching the baseball games with my dad was always fun, he never watched MLB games, only the 'Bows.

"In high school, my parents would let me go with my uncle and aunty. ... After every football game, as soon as I got dropped off at home, I'd race over to the TV to watch the late night broadcast of the game so I could listen to Jim Leahey and see the game from a different angle.

"... The point is that if Rainbow sports were on pay-per-view when I was growing up, my parents wouldn't have subscribed and I wouldn't be much of a fan today. I would have missed out on all those experiences, those great games -- the games that made me want to be there, in person, to take it all in. Those moments that fueled my desire to continue following them when I went away to college on the mainland. Then when I managed to return home for a few years, become a season-ticket holder for basketball (my brother already holding season tickets for volleyball). ..."

And this one:

"It is always a simple situation of supply and demand. The public's propensity to consume a UH Ticket or PPV is based on the elasticity of demand. Simply put, the public perceives the price of both to be too high, so they are not motivated to buy either. Guaranteed, if prices decrease you will see more families, corporations, drinking-buddy huis, etc., jumping in on the action. There is a magic price point for everyone. Of course, the more UH wins, more fair-weather fans will change their elasticity of demand curves.

"Economics is just simple common sense -- kind of like writing a sports column."

COMMENT: Wait a minute, I got a "D" in Economics ...

But seriously, the first e-mail is an example of how UH used KHNL/KFVE to build a fan base. Create memories. Build buzz. And it worked. Ironically, many people who became fans this way are the ones most turned off by "improved" marketing. "Are they still UH," this reader wrote, "or have they fully assimilated into Raiders West?"

The second e-mail is the bottom-line business model, and UH needs that, too. But it's tough to sell the second scenario without having the first, its memories and its buzz. Big-time programs? They have both.

Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com